pt full not only with fluid,
but, as I would suggest, antiseptic fluid. There is no other trap in
the intestinal canal, but the peculiar position of the colon would no
doubt have more or less effect in preventing gases ascending through
the ileo-caecal valve.--_Lancet._

* * * * *

WISCONSIN CRANBERRY CULTURE.

Among the many thousands of well informed persons with whom the
cranberry is a staple article of food throughout the autumn and
winter, and who especially derive from its pungent flavor sharp relish
for their Thanksgiving and Christmas turkey, not one in ten has any
definite idea as to where the delicious fruit comes from, or of the
method of growing and harvesting it. Most people are, however, aware
that it is raised on little "truck patches" somewhere down in New
Jersey or about Cape Cod, and some have heard that it is gleaned from
the swamps in the Far West by Indians and shipped to market by white
traders. But to the great majority its real history is unknown.

Yet the cranberry culture is an industry in which millions of dollars
are invested in this country, and it gives employment, for at least a
portion of each year, to many thousands of people. In the East, where
the value of an acre of even swamp land may run up into the thousands
of dollars, a cranberry marsh of five or ten acres is considered a
large one, and, cultivated in the careful, frugal style in vogue
there, may yield its owner a handsome yearly income. But in the great,
boundless West, where land, and more especially swamp land, may be had
for from $1 to $5 an acre, we do these things differently, if not
better.

The State of Wisconsin produces nearly one-half of the cranberries
annually grown in the United States. There are marshes there covering
thousands of acres, whereon this fruit grows wild, having done so even
as far back as the oldest tradition of the native red man extends. In
many cases the land on which the berries grow has been bought from the
government by individuals or firms, in vast tracts, and the growth of
the fruit promoted and encouraged by a system of dikes and dams
whereby the effects of droughts, frost, and heavy rainfalls are
counteracted to almost any extent desired. Some of these holdings
aggregate many thousands of acres under a single ownership; and after
a marsh of this vast extent has been thoroughly ditched and good
buildings, water works, etc., are erected on it, its v